Let me start with some of a first
adventures. We started traveling in 1970 with a trip to Majorica, an
island of the coast of Spain. My wife and I were officers of the Eastern
Star when friends of ours were Grand officers of the state of
Connecticut.I was a retail manager and had a fairly small income, but
managed to save some money for our 12th Aniversary.  I suprised her with
the trip to Spain that year. Since then we have taken our three
children and seven grandchildren on a cruise to other lands and
cultures,as well as a few in between, 35 in all, as well as trips to
visit most of the United States and eastern Canada.  We love to travel
but have not had the means for expensive travel. We learned early on
that travel can be cheap and still see it all and have a great time. 

Our
first cruise was on the "Carnivale" to the eastern Carribean. We
visited St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, and Samana, Dominican republic.  We
Fell in love with cruising and followed that with a cruise on the "Mardi
Gras" to the western Carribean, visiting Grand Cayman and Cozumel,
mexico.  We had a great time in Grand Caymen and visited the Turtle farm
to see 400 and500 pound sea turtles. Then off to the town of "Hell"
Where we saw a formation of volcanic rock with the devil and  steam
rising from the lava rock caused by the morning dew. Cozumel was
interesting to see the spirit of the people and the Myan ruins.

Next
we ventured West  with a cruise on the Cunard "Princess" from San
Diego, down the coast of mexico.to Accupuco stopping at Cabo st lucas,
Mazalan, Puerto Vallata,Istapa and Accupuco and back to San Diego. This
was our first encounter with problem with a ship. The first night out we
blew a turbo and chugged along at four knots and hour with black smoke
trailing behind us. You could not go out on the back deck without
getting covered with soot. They told us that they had to cut four hours
off each port and the ship would be repaired in accupuco. We spent two
days in port and no repairs were made. We then returned to San Diego
making short stops in several ports. On the last night out we were given
vouchers for a one week cruise on any of the Cunard ships. For all the
problems of this trip we still had a great time and fond memories of the
ports of call and "Bings" ice cream in Puerto Vallata.